I Would
by Mush's Skittles
Summary: AU High school. Skittery hasn't really been friends with Mush since middle school. So why is Mush texting him at 2 am? And what secret is Mush hiding? And what does Spot Conlon have to do with all of this?
1. You remembered me!

I Would

By Skittles.  Disclaimer? I Heart Disney, and fully respect Roy Disney and wish he would stay with the company for sake of tradition.

Chapter 1: "You remembered me!"

~

My school is a piece of shit.  That's a lie. It's not a piece of shit, in fact, it's one of the National Exemplary Schools. It's a big, rich public school in Oak Glen, a wealthy suburb of Van Buren.  Oak Glen High School...aah...it's like dissonant noise to my ears.

You see, OGHS is very respectable. Its students are predominantly white, upper middle class Christians who wouldn't hurt a fly.  They do all the right things, think all the right thoughts, and say all of the right things to kiss ass all the way from kindergarten to graduation.  Counselors hold your hand and lead you gently through the process of choosing a career path.  They then put you on that career path insisting that, "Nothing is set in stone!"  Ha ha. Right.  Ever try to get your schedule changed? Not possible. 

This is why I was sitting in fucking _sewing_ with all of the giggly cheerleaders and adoring boyfriends, girls who haven't thought of something other than a cheer or a football player in about three years. I was busy staring at the wall contemplating my imprisonment in this goody goody hell-hole when I was attacked.

"Hey, Jamie, could you like, pass me a bright pink bobbin?"  _Like, Trisha, could you, like, jump off a cliff?_

"Sure," I mumbled.  I reached over to the box next to me and picked out the ugliest pink thing I could possibly find, threw it at her, and got on with my life.

I went back to staring at the wall. 

"Hey, Skittery, man, you could be a bit nicer to her.  She never did anything to you," said Pie, one of my so-called "friends."  When I first moved here, he had been the shit: we went drinking and his 18 year old brother bought us smokes for _nothing_.  And then he went and fell head over heels for this Gabriella chick, who's your patented white Christian OG girl.  He was seated next to her, and she was frowning disapprovingly at me from behind his massive shoulders.

I think it's a government conspiracy to test me, and all of the students here are robots. Next he'll be asking me if I want to attend Church with him and his dear Gabby.

"Skit, you know we're going up to Gall Slopes with Gabby's church on Saturday, you should come.  It's like a retreat thing."

I hate this school.

"Naw, Pie, I got some shit to take care of."

"Aww, you don't know what you're missin', dude."

Quite sure I do.  But would it be right to tell him to his face that I don't feel like being lectured, and told that I'm going to Hell while peacefully falling on my ass trying to snowboard?  Probably not.  But what the hell.  Since I'm already on my way....

"I don't much feel like being lectured while I fall on my ass trying to snowboard."

"Oh."  He withered.  He's been doing that a lot lately. Such a sap-ass. 

The bell rang and my fellow cattle and I were herded into our next classes. Such is life. 

Or, such _was_ life. 

Though I didn't go to Pie and Gabby's retreat thing (I had to save a little of my self esteem--just in case.), I did manage to have a most horrible Saturday that weekend.  

I work at a restaurant as a bus boy, and after dropping my fifth tray full of dirty plates and food in as many hours, my boss told me to go home and not come back until I could successfully carry a tray without wreaking havoc on the entire kitchen. 

So, pissed at being cheated out of three hours of pay by my own damned self, I sped home. Lo and behold, what do I see in my rear view mirror?  A cop, sirens blaring to wake the dead.  Thinking this was just your routine, "pull over and let them pass," deal, I pulled into a nearby gas station, and into the adjacent supermarket's parking lot.  I proceeded to turn out of the parking lot to take a different way home when I realized that there was another cop coming with his sirens on. 

I pulled over.

  
So did the cop. 

Oh, excuse me, _sheriff._  

Apparently I had been speeding and since I tried to "elude" the Sheriff, my lovely little ticket was doubled. 

But of course!  I had a six pack of beer in the back seat from a party the night before. 

The Sheriff wanted to give me an MIP--but I'd be 18 the next day, and legally that means I'm no longer a minor.

He said I was resisting arrest because I had argued with him. He wasn't even fucking trying to arrest me.

He wanted to search my car. Under the plain view law, I knew full well he had the right to search my car, and I didn't have anything else illegal, so I let him.  

He found pot under my seat. 

Which was my _fucking _brother's. 

All of a sudden, I'm sitting in the police station, holding the phone at arm's length as my mother screamed her lungs out at me.

"HOW DARE YOU LIE TO ME!  I THOUGHT YOU WERE  THE GOOD ONE!  I THOUGHT I TAUGHT YOU BETTER THAN THAT!"  I could hear her sobbing from two and a half feet away and my face burnt as the officer who had escorted me to the phone tried to hide his laughs.

"Sorry," I said, not even trying to explain how I wasn't at fault.

After a few more outbursts, she said she'd be there after she got out of work, that she wasn't going to leave work early to defend a delinquent like me.  I hung up without saying good-bye, and went to go sit in the lobby.

I found myself sitting next to a kid I knew from school.  He one of the first kids I'd met back in 8th grade, but hadn't talked to in ages.  His name was Chris, I think but we didn't call him that--I couldn't remember what we called him.

"Skit?  Skittery O'Leary? Is that you?" Damn. He recognized me.

"Yeah."  He smiled dolefully up at me, with big brown eyes and tight curls.

"I, uh, didn't recognize you in all the black."

"Yeah, well. People change, uh...," I tried to think-- what had we called him? Something to do with mashed potatoes, I think....  Mash...Marsh...Mince...Mesh... Mush!  That was it, Mush.  "Er, Mush," I finished, turning to look at him.  He smiled, genuinely happy that I had remembered his name.  His smile was disarming and I found myself smiling back.  It felt strange to smile and, resuming my usual scowl,  I looked him over.  He seemed the same as I had remembered him, except that his features were more defined, his hair was a little longer, and there was an aura of sadness surrounding him.  

"You remembered," he stated, bluntly.

"Yeah. What are you doing here?" I asked, suddenly remembering that this kid was not, as I remembered him, a risk-taker.  In fact, he was very close to being another OG clone.  But not.  He had done something--but I couldn't remember what.  For what it was worth, he just didn't _feel_ like a God-fearing clone like the rest of them. 

I watched him respond to me, but didn't really listen to what he was saying.  He was wearing an Abercrombie and Fitch sweatshirt with a rich, corduroy jacket over it.  His jeans were faded and slightly tinted in the shade of his jacket, and he wore the same clogs that every other trendy person had.

He slouched appealingly in his chair, and I turned my gaze to the floor, ignoring the warming of my cheeks.

I started listening to him again just in time to hear him say, "If Specs hadn't kissed Snitch during the game, I don't think Dutchy would have drank so much-- he was totally wasted."  I felt instantly awkward: why did that comment embarrass me?

He shook his head sadly.

I contented myself with staring at a nicked tile in the dirty floor.  I had heard that Dutchy and Specs were gay, but never seen them together to prove it-- I guess that was just Mush's crowd.   He seemed perfectly comfortable talking about it, as though being gay was normal.  _Normal._

I could feel Mush looking at me, and I looked at him in annoyance.  After a pause, he continued, as if he were waiting to see if I had been listening.

"I hate it when people at our school try to force their religion on you."

Okay. Now I'm listening.  Here's a boy with some sense.  I felt like singing--I _knew _I liked this kid. 

"It sucks.  They're so fuckin' pushy.  The assholes are so fuckin' righteous, as if they're the only fuckin' people on the planet with brains, and all the rest of us are going to Hell," I burst out, a little louder than I had intended.  I immediately shut up, aware that he had intended me to let myself go.  

"Yeah," he said quietly.  

I had to endure a couple of hour-long seconds, but thankfully, my mother stormed through the glass doors and hurried over to me, murmuring about delinquents.

"I just don't know what I'm going to do with you.  I can't find your brother.  I can't _believe_ the trouble you get into.  After we moved you to such a good school, how could you have possibly gone so far downhill?  I suppose we should have noticed when you started failing all of your classes--"  I stopped listening to her: I didn't need her constant commentary of all of my faults.

Mush had stood up and was staring out the window at the heavy, silver clouds that sat like over fed slugs in the sky.  Dirty piles of plowed snow stood in heaps on the curbs, and lifeless trees waved their claws in defeat.  

"I hate winter," I said, teeth clenched.  

"Yeah," Mush said, without looking back at me.  I watched a Cadillac Escalade glide smoothly into the rough parking lot.  "Hey!" Mush said, turning to me.  "I gotta go.  But gimme a call sometime, eh? We'll chill."  He patted me on the shoulder and smiled his strange, sad smile at me.   

"Right," I said.  He shrugged and left.   He climbed into the Escalade, and started talking with the pretty woman who I assumed was his mother in the front seat.  I bit the inside of my cheeks.  Hang out with him. Right.  What would someone like that want with a fucked up guy like me?  Right.

"James, come on. We have to get your brother to hockey."  My ten year old brother, Joe, scowled disapprovingly at me.

I sulked out to our Oldsmobile and didn't talk on the ride home.

In my room that night, I laid on my bed and listened to some music with all the lights off.  I could hear the happy clinkings of a family at dinner downstairs.

My thoughts were wandering through the dark alleyways of self pity as I relived the day with vengeance.  Injustice was vivid and its anger made me feel good, powerful.

I clenched my teeth together as I remembered the Sheriffs unfounded accusations.   Why did I not have a chance to defend myself?  Why would he not listen to me?  Was it my age? My music?  My clothes? 

If I had been dressed like _Mush _then maybe he would have given me a chance. 

Unbidden, Mush's sad smile sat itself in the forefront of my mind.  I directed my attention to the sheriff, imagining the ways I would like to hurt him.

But Mush's strange top toothed grin lingered, and even as I swam in the delightfully pungent puss pool of self pity, he looked down on me.  

~

Reviews would be helpful.  I know I haven't written anything fanfiction in ages. Forgive me, I do live.

-Skittles


	2. Let the game begin!

I Would

By Skittles. Disclaimer? I Heart Disney, and fully respect Roy Disney and wish he would stay with the company for sake of tradition.

Chapter 2: "Let the game begin!"

I woke up in the middle of the fucking night, completely clothed, with one foot hanging off my bed and a pile of drool under my cheek, wide awake. For a second, I stared at the black square of my window, wondering where the hell I was and what reality I was in.

The dream had been so _real_. I was frustrated. That kid Mush was in it, in his trendy-ass outfit. We were at school for some function. He was trying to get me to follow him, but I had to get to the gym for this assembly, and people kept getting in my way, asking me if I had a snowboard. The damn kid was always just around the next corner.

I shook my head. I could still feel the frustration of the dream. My phone was blinking next to me on the pillow. I had a text. It was from Mush.

From: |555-365-4852| 1:23 AM hey man u up? its me mush

I looked at the clock. It was 2:12. I wiped my mouth, rubbed my eyes.

Re: |555-365-4852| 2:13 AM yeah wats up?

The reply was fast, like he was watching his phone waiting for me.

From: |555-365-4852| 2:13 AM nm u doin anything 2nite?

He wanted to hang out? I eyed the keys to my car. I wasn't supposed to drive. My mom didn't even want me even leaving the house. I glanced at the clock again. 2:16 AM! Officially tomorrow! Fuck it, I thought. It's my 18th birthday. I'll do whatever the hell I want. I added Mush as my contact, and texted him back.

To: |Mush (Mobile)| 2:17 AM no y where r u?

From: |Mush (Mobile)| 2:17 AM my rents 356 ashton in annedale. come over were celebrating.

To: |Mush (Mobile)| 2:18 AM k, cu in a min.

Celebrating? I didn't know, I didn't care. I didn't think it was my birthday, but fuck. I'd celebrate my birthday, they can celebrate the Chinese New Year for all I cared. I grabbed a new t-shirt, something about dinosaurs, and my hoodie. I grabbed my keys and made a pit-stop in the hall bathroom to run wet fingers through my hair. They got stuck in the curls and I sucked a breath in through my teeth to stop from crying out. "FUCK!" I mouthed a silent scream. My scalp was still stinging as I worked my hands out of my hair.

My phone buzzed in my back pocket.

From: |Mush (Mobile)| 2:25 AM hurry up or there wont be any juice left for u...

Fuck, kid, how fast do you think I can get there? I thought. I slowed my pace considerably going past my parents room, then down the stairs, and through the garage. My car was parked on the street, and I got in and drove to Annedale.

Okay, so, remember how I said Oak Glen was full of a bunch of upper middle class white Christian clones? Well, the mother ship is in Annedale. Annedale is this gated community that's actually one looong winding street with a cul-de-sac at the end. And the only house on that Cul-De-Sac is the VanArlan place. It's not a house, it's a fucking _complex. _ You can't even see the house from the road. The damn place has _staff._ Beatrice and Rex go to my high school, they're twins a couple of years behind me, and they always look completely out of place. They have a valet. Not like the kind that parks your car at fancy restaurants, but the kind that lays out your clothes in the morning and makes sure your toilette is put out just so, and that your hair is done properly. It's weird.

So the houses on Annedale Court are also fucking huge, but at least they look like houses and not castles. And the closer you get to the gate, the more normal they look. Mush's place was about three houses in, and could still fit about three of my houses inside it.

I sat in the driveway in my car a second, looking at the dark house. Suddenly I was really fucking nervous. Mush's comment about the Specs/Dutchy/Snitch love triangle came back to me. I almost backed out when my phone buzzed again.

From: |Mush (mobile)| 2:45 AM get in here dude I can see u sitting in the driveway. Come around the back. I made u a drink.

Fuck Skit, the man made you a drink. Now you gotta go drink it, I thought. I walked down the sloping lawn and around the back to the patio. There were a couple of kids giggling and smoking. They all looked like Mush, with those fucking clogs and expensive looking jackets. I dug my hands further into my hoodie.

Inside, a beer pong table was set up, and just as I walked in, all four players and a few of the outcasts yowled in either victory or defeat as a ping pong ball swirled into its cup.

"Skit! There you are!"

I whirled around, and unbidden, a smile came to my face. Mush was there, pressing a drink into my hand. I felt my cheeks flame. "What the fuck is up, dude," I said, accepting the drink and taking a pull of it. Rum. Possibly with an ounce of coke and an ice cube. With an effort, I kept the grimace off my face, and just to reassure any onlookers that I was not, in fact, a pussy, I took another gulp.

"Attaboy," Mush said, slapping me on the back. "Happy birthday, dude."

He remembered my birthday? He was grinning at me as though we had been best friends forever and I was his favorite person. He reminded me of a puppy eager for attention. I could barely keep myself from scratching behind his ears.

I took another drink to cover the fact that I was staring at him and not talking.

"Come on, dude, you're on."

"On?" Mush steered me towards the beer pong table, where fresh cups were being set out.

"Birthday boy gets to play with an extra cup. And you get to be partners with the Cowboy."

He gestured towards a tall kid with a red bandana tied around his neck and a giant-ass belt buckle on his jeans. There were murmurs all around as I shook hands with him. I knew him from sight, and I knew his real name, but he'd graduated last year and I'd never said more than two words to Jack Kelly.

"Who am I playing against?"

"Me and Specs," said a tall kid with an eye patch, dragging over a dark-haired nerdy-looking kid with glasses. I didn't know if the eye patch was cause the kid didn't have an eye or he thought he was being cool looking like a fucking pirate.

"That's Blink," Mush said. "They're legendary beer pong champs. We call em The Tri-Balls cause they only use three eyes."

"Yeah, and they only got three balls between the two of 'em!" Someone shouted.

A deafening, general chorus of "Oooohhhh!" and "Aww, fuck off!" filled the room.

"Alright, alright, alright!" Mush held up his hands. "Let the game begin! Birthday boy first!"

Well, it turns out that I cannot throw a ping pong ball into a plastic cup worth a flying fuck, so by the time the sun came up, I was vomiting in the downstairs bathroom, Mush's hand a steadying presence on my back. The Tri-Balls _were_ good, but they were already trashed. I think I coulda beaten them except nobody told me that the Cowboy, who despite being flipping fantastic, does not drink. So it didn't matter if I won or lost, I drank for two all night, and was praying to the porcelain pirate for deliverance come dawn.

When the offending contents of my stomach had been thoroughly emptied, I flush and sat with my head against the cool granite wall. Mush sat near me on the edge of the bathtub. He handed me a tiny Dixie cup of water.

"Thanks."

"Yeahnoproblem." I looked up. Mush's eyes were shadowed. He looked like he was about to pass out.

"You okay, dude?"

There was a pause.

"Yeah, man. Just. You know. Thinkin."

Mush's head was bowed over in between his knees, and his fingers were hidden in his tightly curled hair. I closed my eyes against the bright, glaring lights of the bathroom, and in a second, Mush spoke again.

"You have a good birthday, Skittery?"

"Yeah, Mush. I did."

"Good. Good. Sorry you puked."

"Nah. Feels a lot better now."

"Good. I'm glad you feel good now."

The conversation was turning weird and my head was beginning to pound. Suddenly it seemed like it was my turn to take care of Mush. Well. He'd gotten me good and drunk when I was down, and sat with my while I puked my brains out. I guess I owed him.

"Yeah, thanks Mush."

He lifted his head up. It looked like hard work.

"Skittery."

"Yeah?"

"You called me Mush."

"Yeah, I did."

"I like that you remembered my name. I thought you forgot about me."

"No, I—"

"Yeah, its okay, though. You did forget about me. But it's okay. It's good, actually."

"Okay," I said. I had no fucking idea what the kid was talking about now. "Maybe you should lie down, Mush."

"NO!"

"Or you don't have to!"

"Just, Skittery, can I just tell you something?"

"Sure."

"Are you drunk?"

I thought about it.

"Yeah, Mush, you got me drunk, you remember?"

"Yeah, well. Nevermind."

"Okay."

"But don't ya wanna know what I was gonna tell you?"

"Okay."

"Skittery. Skit-tery O-Leary. Oh. Lear. Rie. I am gonna tell you something I'm not supposed to tell _anyone._"

"MUSH."

"Oh, hey Cowboy. I was just tellin..."

Jack Kelly was in the doorway.

"You weren't telling anybody anything, Mush Meyers. What are you guys doin? Everyone's asleep but you two."

"Skittery puked."

"And then, Mush was gonna tell me something. What were you—,?"

Jack interrupted me. "C'mon Mush, Skittery. I have a fold-out couch with your names on it." A couch sounded even better. I forgot about whatever Mush was trying to say. I allowed myself to be led back into the sitting room where previously I had lost so spectacularly at beer pong and where now there was what looked like a heavenly concoction of frothy blankets and pillows. Mush, who was leaning on the Cowboy's arm with his eyes half open, let himself be flung onto one side. I sunk into the wealth of blankets on this side of the bed and sunk into a deep, snoring, drooling sleep.


	3. Like we're actually friends?

I Would

By Skittles. Disclaimer? I Heart Disney.

Chapter 3: "Like we're actually friends?"

Let me tell you, when I woke up at Mush's that afternoon, I had a moment of sheer panic. Where was my phone? What time was it? Where the _hell _was I? What happened? I remembered the day before—getting home with my mom and skipping dinner, falling asleep, and waking up...here? No—ohh. I remembered. Mush. The party.

Beer pong.

Pukey Peter.

And Mush talking to me in the bathroom.

And Jack coming to take us to bed...

I looked over my shoulder. Mush was laying there, in his shorts, only his one leg under the covers. He was laying on his back, moaning slightly with each exhaled breath.

I leapt out of the bed. The jackhammers started in on my temples but I just lunged for my hoodie. My phone was in the pocket. My keys were still hooked onto my belt loop. I took one last look at my sleeping host and left out the back slider and went around to my car.

And guess who was sitting on my bumper, smoking a cigarette, with his big ass belt buckle and red bandana?

The fuckin' Cowboy.

"Skittery," he said.

"Cowboy."

"Headin' out?"

"Yep."

"So listen," he flicked the cherry of his cigarette into the driveway. "You have fun at the party?"

I nodded, made an affirmative sound. Last night, I'd fist bumped this guy after our first beer pong win. Now I felt like he was interrogating me.

"Yeah, you did? Good. Good. Hey, so Mush ever tell you what he was on about?" Jack looked at me from under his eyebrows, his eyes pointed up, his head down.

"Naw, he passed out. So did I." There was a pause

"Good. Listen Skit, I like you. You understand. The kid was drunk."

Yeah, I thought, and I'm hungover as hell, get to the point.

"All I'm sayin is, he might have said things he might not have meant."

"He didn't say anything to me that wasn't about beer pong," I said, rubbing my eyes and shivering. The sun was out and it was icy and freezing. It was like standing in a freezer made of florescent light. "I gotta go."

I got into my car and cranked the heat. The old heater whined a bit. The Cowboy tapped a knuckle on my window. I cracked it.

"Good seein ya, Skittery."

"Yeah. You too."

He backed up, and as I backed out, he gave me a couple of taps on the hood to send me on my way.

When I got to my house, I parked in the gravel between the sidewalk and the street.

My phone buzzed in the cup holder. I looked at the screen. Incoming call: Home. "Aww, fuck that," I said, and hit ignore. 5 missed calls. 2 voicemails. And _pling._ Another voicemail. Three seconds long? I hit play.

"James Eugene O'Leary, you get your ass in here. _NOW." _I groaned. The hula girl on my dashboard grinned at me. "Aww. Come on, Candy, don't look at me that way. Come on," I said, sliding her into my hoodie pocket on a whim. "Time to face the music."

The lecture was long and futile. I didn't lie about where I'd been. I didn't see the point. They already knew I was a fuck up. It was all, _I don't know _what's_ gotten into you lately, _and _you used to be such a good kid,_ and, _I know you could do so well if you would just apply yourself,_ and so on. I walked out when she started to get weepy. I couldn't handle my mom getting weepy, and I'll tell you why. Cause it turned me into the villain—I couldn't comfort her, and anything I did would just disappoint her anyway. I couldn't say I'd be better next time because she didn't believe me (and lately, neither did I.) And I knew that if I let her go on, we'd get to, _I know I've been a bad mother, and I'm sorry!_ And that was just fucked up for everybody. If I got out while she was still mad, it was like she was a Mom and not some sniveling personI had to take care of.

Maybe she figured the same thing, or just ran out of steam, because she didn't follow me up to my room. I was still pretty fuckin' exhausted but even more than that, I smelled like a frat house, so I scorched myself in a hot shower for a few minutes, didn't even bother dressing, and climbed into my bed with boxers and wet hair.

I hadn't been asleep for long before there was a knock at my door. "Skit?" I froze. No one in my household called me Skittery. In fact, it was pretty much only the population at Mush's party that did, and a few stragglers like Pie who'd been brainwashed.

The door cracked open. It was Mush, looking like he'd had a restful day at the spa. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah, sure," I said, sitting up and shaking my head. I still felt a bit like someone had taken a power washer to my insides: empty and kind of raw. Mush walked in and sat on the edge of my bed, like he was going to read me a bedtime story.

"So, Jack talked to you, right? When you left this...um, afternoon?"

"Yeah, he did."

Mush fiddled with the zipper on the end of his jacket. I scanned my room for a t shirt within reach. If I could be relatively nonchalant about it, I could possibly clothe myself without Mush being suspicious...of what? I didn't know. But dammit, I wanted a t shirt.

"What did he say to you?"

"Well, he wanted me to disregard anything you said to me while you were drunk. But I don't think you said anything. Hey, do my parents know you're here?" I'd just glanced at the clock. It was 8:13 PM.

"Yeah, I told them you forgot something at my house."

"They give you a hard time?"

"Nah. Your mom's pretty nice. Just told me you're upstairs. Told me you might be asleep." I snorted. Of course my mom was nice to Mush. Mush's dad was a higher-up at the pharmacy my mom worked for. And my mom was nice to anyone who wasn't me or my older brother Jason. He'd failed her, I'd failed her...we didn't deserve her tenderness. Only Joe hadn't fucked up yet. Well. He was only 10. He'd have time.

"Anyway," Mush continued, "I did come to bring you something." He took a small, blue box with a cheap paper bow taped to the top of it out of his jacket pocket and set it on the bed next to me. "Happy birthday." I stared at it.

"Um," I said. "Dude, you didn't like—get me anything did you? Cause...you kind of did enough last night...and I mean, it's not like..."

"Like we're actually friends?" Mush completed for me.

"Well, I wasn't—," I tried to defend myself. I didn't want him to think I didn't want him as a friend...Hell, a preppy ass kid with a cowboy shaped shadow was better than _Pie,_ who had completely deserted me for some mumbo-jumbo about God attached to a pretty girl and her tits. But yeah, I mean, we'd hung out once, and only got reacquainted in the last 24 hours. It was kinda weird.

"Yes, you were thinking it. I know we're not friends now, not _really_ cause you can get drunk and puke with people who are not your friends. But you know. We _used_ to be. I mean. When we were little you know, and I just..." his phone buzzed my whole bed from his back pocket, and he slid out some fancy, shiny number with a touch screen. "Shit," he mumbled, and inexplicably looked over his shoulder through the open door of my room. "Listen Skit, I gotta go, just, open it...and...don't worry about it. It's not like...I mean it's not a wedding ring. I'll see you at school. Happy birthday." And he dashed out of there like he was late for a very important date.

I eyed the blue box. We_ had_ been friends. Years ago. We'd both lived in different places then, neither of us went to school in the Oak Glen school system. We'd both lived on the same street in VanBuren and went to the city schools there. It was...a different kind of place. Well, it was _urban._ So, you know, it had inner city problems. We had been friends. But what did it mean to be friends when you were ten? We played with Legos and K'nex. We raced our bikes around the block. We went to Chuck E Cheese and gorged ourselves on pizza and video games. But I don't remember ever saying anything to him that wasn't about what we were _doing._ Ten year old boys don't _know _each other, not really. They barely know themselves.

Ah, what the hell, I thought. It was probably something stupid inside the box anyway. I opened it with as little ceremony as possible. Inside, on a piece of tissue paper, was a key. I knew that key. Fuck. I knew that key, and I knew where it had come from. But why..._why _did Mush have Spot Conlon's key? And why in the name of sweet holy Jesus had he given it to me?


	4. You talked to Spot recently?

I Would

Chapter 4 "You talked to Spot recently?"

I put Spot's key on the chain of an old dog tag necklace I thought was cool circa seventh grade, and wore it under my t-shirt to school on Monday. For some reason, the thing was weighing on my mind like it was the fuckin' One Ring or something. I couldn't stop fiddling with it, snatching at it through my shirt and twisting it with my fingers all day. I probably looked like I had a rash. Or heartburn. No one said anything though, and I was kinda surprised about that. I felt like I had a spotlight on my head and a dude in livery walking in front of me yelling, MAKE WAY! HIS IDIOCY JAMES "SKITTERY" O'LEARY HAS SPOT CONLON'S KEY.

But people weren't making way for me. They were ignoring me. As per fucking usual. My jeans were dirty, my hair looked like a badly groomed poodle, and the neck of my t-shirt was stretched out and frayed. My hoodie had holes in the cuffs. Now I didn't particularly give a flying fuck about fashion. I mean, who was I there to impress? No one. But I couldn't help noticing that Monday that I looked like a hobo. And these fucking clones were _trained_ to look right past me. They couldn't be bothered to look at something unpleasant. I watched them all, with their expensive, well fitting clothes and their fancy phones.

Well, I'd tried fitting in with them before. But if you don't have the bottomless pool of cash like these assholes, they can tell. Doesn't matter to them if you are wearing almost exactly what they wear. They can tell you don't shop where they shop.

Fuck 'em.

Fuck 'em all.

Even Mush.

Especially Mush. Because not _even_ Mush said a word to me today when I passed him. And the fucker and I made eye contact for a good five seconds. And it wasn't like the Cowboy was around to make him stop talking. I was gonna ask him about the key, ask him why he'd given it to me, why he'd left so suddenly...but he just turned away with that politician's grin, bestowing it upon someone else.

Damnit. He _was_ just another of those fucking people. I headed off to sewing (_fucking_ sewing) dearly wishing I could skip it, just get in my car and _drive _away. But if I didn't show up to my last period, I'd fail out, and if you fail out of English, you fail out of High School in general. And as much as I hated to admit it, I had too much pride to drop out like my asshole brother. I clutched at the key again, my thoughts standing off, brother against brother, having a fucking civil war.

What the fuck was I thinking, going over to Mush's? Why did I make myself feel...I dunno..._chosen?_ Mush was one of the popular kids. I should have known. I was just entertainment. Let's adopt the pathetic outcast kid. Get him drunk, see what he does. And I went along. And today, nothing.  
And Mush was at _my_ house, giving me fucking weird cryptic birthday gifts, acting all hurt when I say _it's not like were even friends._ Well fucking played, asshole. See if I ever fall for your sham of a friendship again.

I knew that now I should angrily rip Spot's key off my neck and throw it in the garbage in disgust. I was holding on to it now. I'd taken it out of the collar of my shirt, and I was scratching it with my thumbnail, letting it _scritch_ quietly. But I couldn't.

"Hey, Skit."

I looked up. It was Pie. "Oh, hey Pie." I'd forgotten Pie was also an outcast of Jack's little gang. All of us were` at the party, with the nicknames, like the ones our parents gave us weren't good enough. It was a middle school thing. From when I was like fourteen. It was stupid. We were all hanging around a lot one summer, wandering around the little "downtown" area of Oak Glen, picking fights with other kids, feeling all self righteous about ourselves. Hangin' around at Tibby's cause the old lady who ran the place let us have free refills of Mountain Dew and french fries. Before high school separated us into clones and normal people. I'd begun to think we still had some semblance of friendship at the party but, you can never tell with OG clones. They can hide anything behind those shiny, straight white teeth.

"You shoulda come on the retreat with me and Gabby," Pie said, sitting down at the sewing machine next to me. "It was eye opening. And really fun."

"Naw, Pie, you know I don't go in for that bullshit."

"Well, to each his own. But I mean, what else were you gonna do this weekend?"

"I just...hung around."

"See?" Pie grinned like he'd won a bet. "It _woulda_ been fun."

"Yeah."

"Next time, then," Pie said, like I'd confirmed a date with him. I didn't know what would be worse, pretending to be a religious jock like Gabby and Pie and going on retreats, or pretending that Mush and them actually thought I was worth the space I inhabited.  
At least at Mush's I never had to fake pray. It hadn't actually been a bad night. Maybe I was reading too much into things.

I continued sewing.

And I began to hatch a plan.

My last class of the day was English, and Mush was in it. I'd corner him after class, and make him talk. And he would tell me about Spot. Yeah.

Yeah.

Some master plan.

But after English, before the bell even rang, while everyone was milling about getting ready to run, Mush actually plopped his designer jean-covered ass on my desk and announced that I was coming with him after school.

"Um, where?" I asked. My hand itched to mess with Spot's key again, but I kept it down.

"Well...where do you wanna go?"

I stared at him. He was grinning at me a little shyly. All top teeth.

"I mean, let's just hang out, you know? We were out of touch for a long time. Lets go somewhere. Hey, you know where I haven't been in a million years? Tibbys. Hell, I bet Ole Aggie still gives us a plate of fries just for sitting down. Yeah." The bell rang. "Lets go."He was being oddly _cute_ again, like at the police station and when I showed up at the party. Like a puppy. It was disarming. I almost smiled.

Okay, I smiled.

I also followed him out to his car and into the restaurant trying to talk to him like we were actually friends. I felt like I sounded fake, like I was reading someone else's lines in a play. It wasn't too bad though. In all honesty, he chattered away most of the time, talking about non-things like homework and girls and some stupid movie he'd seen on Sunday.

After our customary Mountain Dews and french fries, we were flinging crumpled up salt packets at each other, and the server dropped the bill with an expression that told us she'd rather be anywhere else.

"See?"Mush said suddenly. "I knew we could still have fun together."

I was momentarily surprised that we _were _having fun. The good, old-fashioned, non-alcoholic kind. I smiled. "Yeah."

And then I had icy anxiety course down right behind my breastbone. Right behind Spot's key. Because I knew now was the time to bring it up. And really, Mush had made it easy.

And _what_, exactly, was I afraid of again?

Yeah. Nothing. Grow some balls, Skitt.

"So, Mush. You talked to Spot recently?"I had guessed he'd be expecting this question, and I was right. He only missed half a beat.

"Not since we moved." Mush and I had moved the same year. Friends in VanBuren, we thought we'd continue to stay friends in Oak Glen. Well, we had, mostly. Except for high school. Until now.

"So, um, how did you get his key?"

"He, ah, gave it to me."Okay, I thought, that's a boldface lie. Spot Conlon would not have given that key to anyone. From what I remembered, he'd been a pretty calm guy. Not too outrageous. Didn't have to be. He was like the genius demure guy in the suit in movies who controls legions of dumb thugs. But you ever touch his key, and that kid would fight like a trapped badger. I saw some idiot touch it once. Just reached out and grabbed the thing. His name was Ron, but now everyone called him Scar, courtesy of Spot's key dragged down the side of his face. Rumor was that Spot's parents had left him a ton of cash or a giant diamond or something, and the key was to a safe deposit box in the big bank downtown.

I took the key out of my shirt. "Why?" I asked, holding the key out to look at it. It was an old silver key. The center of it was thick and round, and on either side the teeth of the key looked like city skylines. "Why trust you? Cause obviously he couldn't. I mean, you gave the thing to me."

Mush was staring at the key. "No. I mean, yes I gave it to me. But... He could trust me." He lowered his voice in volume and timbre. "Put that away, Skittery."

I felt suddenly like someone was watching me. I stuffed it down my shirt. Looked behind me. No one. A family. Mom, dad, baby. No one I knew. "Why you? Why did he need to trust you? Why can't you keep it?"

"Hey, let's let my mom take us out, yeah?"Mush said, incongruously and a little too loud. He produced a slick looking credit card from his wallet, and put it in the check presenter. As if she had been waiting for the cue, our server slid by and snapped it up. She was back a minute later.

"Thanks, guys."

Mush wrote a tip, signed it with a flourish, and said, "It was fun, Skit. Let me take you back to your car."

"But what about—,"

"I'm hanging out with Jack and a couple of the guys tonight. We're gonna play some video games. You wanna come back to my house?"I understood that we were done talking about Spot.

"Am I gonna end up puking in your bathroom?"I asked as we drove back to the school.

"Only if you're allergic to Chinese food. My mom said I could order something."

"Your parents aren't back yet?"

"No, they'll be back next Monday."

"They just left you alone?"

Mush shot me a conspiratorial grin. "Not exactly. They left me with my uncle, my dad's brother. But he just gave me his cell phone number and said not to destroy anything and to call him in an emergency. He said he's not a babysitter. I'm not complaining."

I laughed. It was a little forced. I wasn't complaining either. We were at the school now, and Mush had pulled up next to my car.

"Alright, well, maybe I'll see you at your house later. I gotta run home first anyway."

"Skit."

Mush grabbed my shoulder as I leaned forward to get out of the car. He pulled me straight back so my stomach muscles had to work to keep from falling in his lap. "Leave that key at home. Keep it safe,"he buzzed in my ear. I tried to look at him, but couldn't bend my neck at the right angle. He pushed me back up. "Shoot me a text if you're gonna come," he said.

"O-Ok,"I faltered. I waved as he drove off.

I got in my car. The key felt like it was burning on my chest. Now I really _did _feel like the damn thing was some cursed magical relic, singling me out as the chosen damned.

At home, I stood in my room for a few minutes staring around. Mush's words had creeped me out. Keep it safe? Was someone going to come after it? Was someone after Mush? Was someone going to come after me? Why the secrecy? Did I even have a place safe enough?

I looked around. Well, if I were going to look for a small hidden item, where would I look? Sock drawer. Desk drawer. Closet. All out of the question. Piggy bank. No. Mattress? Naw, too great-depressionish. It wasn't a wad of cash. What would Spot do when he found out I had his key? Unless Spot was the one trying to hide it? Maybe Mush wasn't lying about Spot having given him the key. But why Mush? And if Mush hadn't seen Spot since we moved, why keep it for four years and _then_ give it to me? What if Mush was lying about having seen Spot? It's not impossible. VanBuren is just up the road. My mom goes shopping there sometimes, and I bet Mush's mom does all the time. Mush could have run into Spot and—what? Spot just gave him his most prized possession?

Nothing made sense. But now the thing was creeping me out, so maybe hiding it was the best thing anyway. Out of sight. Out of mind. I pulled down an old copy of The Lord of the Rings, smirking a bit to myself, stuck it between the pages, and shoved it back into its place on the shelf. It was a big old hardcover, well loved and nearly falling apart. I'm kind of irreverent with the books I love, and it showed. But it made the spine real forgiving if you need to hide something thick within its pages. You couldn't even see a gap in the pages once I'd forced it back into its place. There. Frodo can take the damn thing, since he's so good at carrying doomed trinkets, I thought.

My phone buzzed.

From: |Mush (Mobile)| 5:46 PM kung pao ok?

To: |Mush (Mobile)| 5:46 PM ya xtra spicy.

From: |Mush (Mobile)| 5:47 PM lol ok

I grabbed my hoodie and headed to Mush's.


End file.
